This Land Is Your Land (Reprise)
In my last entry, I talked about Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen's performance of This Land Is Your Land at the 2009 Inauguration concert for President Barack Obama.
Here is a YouTube clip of the same song, this time as recorded by Woody Guthrie himself. The vision seen here shows Woody Guthrie caught on two vary rare film clips.
The first carries the date, 1945, and appears to be at an outdoor location. This captures Woody as many might expect him to be seen -- singing at a hobo camp or to a group of itinerant workers somewhere. Of course, we have no way of knowing what the real circumstances behind this recording is. It may have been filmed for a very early television program or documentary film. It's not even clear if he is in fact singing This Land... during this clip.
The second piece of footage dated 1946 shows Woody Guthrie performing with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, again probably for a very early television program, or film. They are almost certainly not performing This Land... but it doesn't matter.
Just to see an iconic figure like Woody Guthrie caught on film is enough.
Why do people like Woody Guthrie become such iconic figures. After all, it is not as if he found a cure for cancer, or made some other great scientific discovery. And yet Woody seems to have found a place in popular history -- the people's history, if you will -- that has cemented his place in the pantheon of great individuals who have touched other peoples lives in ways they would never have thought possible while they were living their own.
Maybe it is because people like Woody, and Pete Seeger, and Leadbelly walked the walk, and talked the talk. They lived in an age when what you did with your life and art, was always more important than who you slept with, or how you dressed, or whether you had added a few pounds to your butt over the summer.
They also lived in an age when they could carve out a niche for themselves in music, or theatre or the arts. Today, people like Woody and his contemporaries might still carve out a small niche for themselves in the modern music business, but only as curiosities -- as some sort of throwback to an age or era long past and almost forgotten.
Thank goodness these small remnants of film and audio exist to remind us of their greatness and their existence in the world.
Here is a YouTube clip of the same song, this time as recorded by Woody Guthrie himself. The vision seen here shows Woody Guthrie caught on two vary rare film clips.
The first carries the date, 1945, and appears to be at an outdoor location. This captures Woody as many might expect him to be seen -- singing at a hobo camp or to a group of itinerant workers somewhere. Of course, we have no way of knowing what the real circumstances behind this recording is. It may have been filmed for a very early television program or documentary film. It's not even clear if he is in fact singing This Land... during this clip.
The second piece of footage dated 1946 shows Woody Guthrie performing with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, again probably for a very early television program, or film. They are almost certainly not performing This Land... but it doesn't matter.
Just to see an iconic figure like Woody Guthrie caught on film is enough.
Why do people like Woody Guthrie become such iconic figures. After all, it is not as if he found a cure for cancer, or made some other great scientific discovery. And yet Woody seems to have found a place in popular history -- the people's history, if you will -- that has cemented his place in the pantheon of great individuals who have touched other peoples lives in ways they would never have thought possible while they were living their own.
Maybe it is because people like Woody, and Pete Seeger, and Leadbelly walked the walk, and talked the talk. They lived in an age when what you did with your life and art, was always more important than who you slept with, or how you dressed, or whether you had added a few pounds to your butt over the summer.
They also lived in an age when they could carve out a niche for themselves in music, or theatre or the arts. Today, people like Woody and his contemporaries might still carve out a small niche for themselves in the modern music business, but only as curiosities -- as some sort of throwback to an age or era long past and almost forgotten.
Thank goodness these small remnants of film and audio exist to remind us of their greatness and their existence in the world.
Labels: 2009, Barack Obama, Brownie McGee, Bruce Springsteen, Folk, Inauguration Concert, Leadbelly, music, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Woody Guthrie
posted by Jim Lesses at
4:40 PM
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